I can't say that I experienced Hue as a town with a lovely cityscape. It was loud, a bit chaotic and not so beautyful. But it was absolutely worth the visit: with its Forbidden Purple City Hue has – as the former capital of Vietnam – a real heavyweight tourist feature. As this highlight was severe damaged during the Vietnam war, authorities now invest massively in the restauration. It will be an absolute must-have-seen in the future. By now it is very impressive. Further you can explore several tombs of ancient emperors, located besides the Perfume River.
We went for dinner to a little restaurant mentioned in our guidebook. The owner was very nice and also business-minded, but in a very good way. He arranged for us a dragonboat trip along the Perfume River for (from our point of view) fair price. We enjoyed this trip a lot, to move on alien waterways is something very special.
We had only one a bit tricky situation on the boat trip: the boat stopped at the riverbank (seeming in the nowhere) and we went of to vist a tomb. Behind the bushes a group of motorcyclists waited for us to transfer us to the tomb. We thought we could walk but have been convinced that it is too far. Afterwards we knew that it wasn't. So we felt a bit taken in (and we were). But I have to say that this was one of the very rare situations we have been ripped off. All the time of our trip people were nice and kind (by the way: we had a different experience in Thailand a few years before).
